Wednesday, April 4, 2012

And The Music Played On

She studied her face in the mirror. She was older. She
wondered if wiser too. The world had changed; she moved into a virtual world
called Second Life. Tired of her real life, she turned her computer on one day
and immersed herself in that mysteriously attractive world filled with magical
possibilities and terrible misunderstandings. Even though she felt the
intensity of dramatic arguments with a painful feeling of desperation, she
preferred that make-believe world to the small one room apartment with loud
neighbors and no light in the corridor. She decided to become a fairy. That had
its beauty and she needed beauty at that particular time of her life. She
stopped going out, ordered her food in, bought everything online, even stopped
watching TV, and pretty much lived in that one room apartment oblivious of the
outside world, until one day she heard a scream right outside her door. What was
she to do? Should she help and be confronted with reality again, destroying the
peace of mind she had been building for the past few months? Or should she
ignore it and live with the feeling she could’ve helped someone in danger? Her
conscience took over and she carefully opened the door, peeking through to see
a man holding a gun standing next to a woman kneeling on the floor. The man looked
up and instinctively pressed the trigger. There was a loud bang in the stairs.
No one showed up to help. A concert was taking place in Second Life, Beethoven.
The music flowed through the corridor taking over the deathly silence. The door
stayed ajar. And the music played on.